Atticus takes a more hands-off approach to child-rearing than Jack.
Uncle Jack has no children, and Atticus is raising his two children on his own. Atticus is a somewhat absent parent. He depends on Calpurnia, his housekeeper, to take care of his children and provide life lessons. Although he threatens to spank his children often, he never actually does.
Jack takes a more direct approach. At Christmastime, he takes offense at Scout’s constant swearing. Atticus...
Atticus takes a more hands-off approach to child-rearing than Jack.
Uncle Jack has no children, and Atticus is raising his two children on his own. Atticus is a somewhat absent parent. He depends on Calpurnia, his housekeeper, to take care of his children and provide life lessons. Although he threatens to spank his children often, he never actually does.
Jack takes a more direct approach. At Christmastime, he takes offense at Scout’s constant swearing. Atticus ignores it, believing that it is a stage all children go through. Scout wants to convince Atticus that she picked up bad language at school. Calpurnia apparently also ignores it.
Jack tells Scout he will punish her if he catches her swearing or fighting.
“Well I don’t,” said Uncle Jack, “not unless there’s extreme provocation connected with ‘em. I’ll be here a week, and I don’t want to hear any words like that while I’m here. Scout, you’ll get in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You want to grow up to be a lady, don’t you?” (Ch. 9)
When Jack hears Scout and Francis fighting, Francis tells him that Scout called him a “whore-lady” and jumped on him. Jack spanks her, and she runs to Atticus. Atticus tells her that she had it coming. Later Jack tries to talk to Scout, and tells her that she had it coming and he is surprised she would hold it against him.
Scout tells him he does not understand children much, and then proceeds to educate him.
“Well, in the first place you never stopped to gimme a chance to tell you my side of it—you just lit right into me. When Jem an‘ I fuss Atticus doesn’t ever just listen to Jem’s side of it, he hears mine too, an’ in the second place you told me never to use words like that except in ex-extreme provocation, and Francis provocated me enough to knock his block off—” (Ch. 9)
She also asks him what a whore-lady is, and he gives her an evasive answer. Later, Atticus tells him it is best to tell children the truth and be direct, because they can spot an evasion easier than an adult and evasive answers just confuse them. Atticus gives Scout an evasive answer later when she asks him about rape, but he does have a tendency to use elaborate adult language and not dumb it down for his children.
The main thing Jack learns from the incident is that raising children is harder than he thought. Atticus's indirect ways seem to get results, because his children have been raised to solve their own problems. In fighting, Scout was doing that. Jack told her not to fight or swear unless provoked, and she was provoked when Francis insulted her father.
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